


Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair

by bladeCleaner



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Gen, PoC, San Francisco
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 03:24:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3962629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bladeCleaner/pseuds/bladeCleaner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jade, Rose, Dave and John have never seen each other in real life. When it's spring break, they decide to band together to finally see each other (and mock each other) IRL. </p><p>The city is San Francisco, and the four of them are reckless, excited and above all, ready to party together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [k_bright](https://archiveofourown.org/users/k_bright/gifts).



> For my lovely giftee, who had an EXCELLENT PROMPT.  
> Also, in partial, for asherdashery, who I think of every time I land in San Francisco, no matter where either of us live.
> 
> P.S. The perspectives change a LOT in one chapter, which is confusing, I'll admit. I've tried my best to make it as obvious as possible who it's changed to in the paragraphs. It was all originally in third person, but let's be honest, second-person HS fic is like a standard. My apologies, however.

1\. Hometowns are unacceptable.

2\. Hometowns are unacceptable. (mi casa es non su casa?) (dave just stop) (yeah dude) (cmon like...i took like a year of spanish) (Really? What's another phrase in Spanish?) (well as they say in german its all sausages to me)

3\. No getting arrested. (We’re looking at you, Jade.) (aw really) (Jade........) (guys it was one museum, i didnt get caught, and maybe one research facility but i dont see how thats a problem) (IT WAS A MILITARY RESEARCH FACILITY. i'm not even sure how you pulled that off) (a witch never reveals her secrets!!!)

4\. What happens in San Francisco stays in San Francisco.

-

TG: why san francisco

TG: is my question

TG: theres a big huge red thing there so thats a plus

TG: but im not seeing the appeal

TG: i still vote vegas

GG: silicon valley thats why!!!!

GG: i really want to check out some stuff over there and cmoooooooooon dave you know you want to walk that big red bridge and take hipster pictures in berkeley and junk

TT: I second San Francisco. I mean, I'd prefer New Orleans, for obvious reasons, but it'd definitely be much easier for Jade up in Vancouver if we stick to the coast. Particularly the West Coast.

EB: and seattle isn't an option i guess! it wouldn't be fair if i had an advantage over you guys

EB: i can't believe i agreed to that ground rule.

TG: you and me both bro

TT: We just agreed on that because no one wants to go to Texas.

TG: rude

TT: Whatever.

GG: however, accurate :B

TG: et tu harleyus

TT: Oh, like you're not excited to check out the thriving photography scene. Not to mention the levels of irony you'll be able to achieve by messing with all those Silicon Valley hipsters.

GG: exactly!!!

TG: point

EB: yeah dude

EB: and besides vegas would be lame anyway!

EB: you would pass out after like half a drink

EB: or drunk skype conference us again talking about taxidermy and plush dongs

TG: THAT WAS ONE TIME

GG: one time is too many dave...

GG: one time is too many!!!

-

 

Your pencil glides across the paper. For the first time in a while, you’re drawing people. 

Rose - you think about Rose, who has dimples when she smiles. Rose, who wears knits almost exclusively and likes to spook all of you with the weird hiss thing she can do with her voice. Rose, who’s gangly and tall and beautiful and pale as like, the results of Petri dishes and some common bacteria. You’d said this to her once and Rose had wrinkled her nose on webcam.

You draw her first, thinking: a curve, a shape, a line. Your best friend, all tall skinny limbs and twig like with the sun tattooed on her collarbone.

You then think about Dave, the absolute doof, with bad bangs and a tendency to not shave and still look clean cut for months. He’s a different look; short for an American male and looks permanently like a kid with sunglasses. He’s got auburn hair that flames in the sun and is freckled so badly he’s heard all the chocolate chip jokes out there, thanks, EGBERT. You draw him with cartoonish flames coming out of his mouth and laugh.

Then there’s John. You and John were friends the longest. You could probably sketch him best. John is stocky, well-built and his guns nearly beat yours. Not just yet though. Hehe. He’s like your grandfather in a lot of ways. He likes novelty joke books and amateur magic tricks, and weird old movies nobody their age has ever seen. He has a telescope in his house because he likes the constellations, like you. He Skypes sitting in the bathtub fully clothed, the faucet dry, sometimes. He and Rose won’t tell you and Dave the joke.

He’s African American, same as you. You joke about being the token friends together, which makes Dave super uncomfortable. John, unlike Dave, constantly shaves because he can grow a full beard in a week, seems like. 

They're weirdos but they're your weirdos, and you're their weirdo too.

You can’t wait to see them.

-

GG: im boarding soon!

EB: awesome. which seat did you get?

GG: a window seat! :D

EB: i can't believe we both booked flights on the same day.

EB: your psychic powers kicking in again ms witchy witch!

GG: sssssssssshhhhhhhhhh you big goob

EB: only dreams now?

GG: sweet prince

GG: ;)

EB: wow you're such a sweet talker jade

GG: i know

GG: ill try to fend off all the sweet ladies and boys and nonbinary cuties when we hit the streets

EB: use dave

GG: good idea

GG: also WOW was that a slightly mean thing you just said??

GG: my innocent view of you as a dave loving pushover is totally tarnished

EB: you can't see it right now but i'm rolling my eyes

GG: good thing i cant see it then :p

GG: anyway i forgot to pack snacks so i had to pay an exorbitant amount for a pack of m&ms

EB: exorbitant?

GG: blame rose.

EB: yeah, dude. she was telling me about egregious the other day. i feel sorry for her professors

GG: she must make them cry in their elbow patches!

-

TT: Do you think they suspect?

TG: well i havent said a word

TG: and youre like a steel cage of secrets

TT: Jade would prefer Faraday Cage.

TG: i know shit all about technology so

TT: You weren't listening to her enthused explanation about microwaves and signal blocking hardware?

TG: uh

TG: hell no

TG: i love the girl but the only concern i have is that the nsa knows how boring my porn is

TT: Clearly a pressing issue.

TG: you know it

TG: whens your flight anyway

TT: In several hours, pending any delays or labor strikes.

TG: first

TT: Show off.

TG: well its not like it was a competition

TT: Uh huh. 

TG: its so weird here though

TG: everythings microbrew or organic or vegetarian

TG: and expensive

TG: you get those rates down south

TG: they shake their head at you and be like

TG: in this economy son

TG: in this economy

TT: You haven't moved outside your hotel room once, have you.

TG: nope 

TG: but totes irrelevant

TG: i can feel the hipsterism leaking in through the windows lalonde

TG: im among my people

TT: Well, that's not discomfiting at all.

TT: I wonder if I can get a refund on this plane ticket.

-

Dave arrives four days early. Jade, Rose and John quickly follow in succession, hours apart.

-

On the first day, you draw.

You take out your sketchbook and color pencils. They're hardly the artist's set you’re used to – basic travel set - but you try your best to sketch and color in the sunrise anyway, overlooking the Bay.

When you're done, you press your fingers on the glass, leaning your forehead on it to watch your transparent figure against the blooming hibiscus of the sky. "Hello, world," you murmur. "Are we ready for each other?"

-

In the afternoon, you invade Stanford and walk through the early afternoon light soaking in the sun. It's beating down on the back of your neck like a pipe of heat, your pulled-up ponytail doing little to salvage you from the rising temperature.

You have your Squiddles lunchbox in your hand. It rattles as your sneakers crunch the grass and you feel like dropping it and running, all of a sudden, the front yard of Stanford is so beautiful and _great_ and the weather makes you feel like nature's eddying around in you, flows of potential and greatness as the light hits your skin. But you simply laugh aloud. Some people turn to stare and you keep laughing to yourself, that's how great the day is. There's nerves fizzling under your skin like you’re a soda can waiting to pop. You could do a cartwheel right now if you weren't holding a box.

You finally sit down on a ledge near a staircase overlooking the yard, open your lunchbox and crack open your sketchbook. You wistfully run your hand over the sketches of your friends. Then you get to work on the horizontal landscape of the courtyard before you, roughly sketching with a H pencil and losing yourself in the lines, occasionally holding it up to sight properly.

-

On the second day, you rise from your flight-induced slumber. You slap some black lipstick and your best smirk on, venture out the door to find sustenance.

-

On the third day, you and Jade pretend to Rose and Dave you’ve just landed.

An additional surprise – you’ve already scoped out an awesome place to take them to, and buy four flashlights from a hardware store. You’re so excited you could explode.

-

On the fourth day – You’ve got your earphones in blasting in Kanye West when you step out of the cab. You wipe your hands on your sweater. It's crimson and you look yourself over as quickly as possible, wondering if your outfit is nonchalant-looking enough. Like you’re trying, but only a little bit, and so casually good it's effortless. Your sunglasses are polished, you’re rocking your red hightops and you’ve got over the nervous feeling you'd had when you first landed.

You adjust your sunglasses. Time to meet the best friends of your life.

\--

GG: were meeting outside the museum, right???

TG: thats the plan

TT: I admit; I expected this to go differently.

EB: what do you mean, rose?

TT: For the lack of a better word, I dreamed that we would all only meet under a very specific circumstance; a rather sepulchral one, at that.

GG: hmm me too actually

TG: well i imagined that we would all be drunk in vegas

EB: shhhhhhh

EB: idk i kind of thought it would be like in con air and i’d be wearing a wifebeater

GG: let her finish guys!!!

TT: I thought we would only meet under the sky of an apocalypse.

TG: zombies

TT: Perhaps.

TT: But something all-encompassing, rather, the destruction of existence as we knew it to be.

TT: But yet here we are.

GG: im glad youre here

GG: im glad its this

EB: me too

TG: yeah

TG: god

TG: make a guy tear up right before hes about to meet yall

TG: wtf is this emotional response stuff

TG: im dave freakin strider

TT: Well, Dave Freakin’ Strider.

TT: I’m glad we’re all here too, even if you’re included.

TG: totes unnecessary

TT: Yes, yes, you’re excited to see me. Contain your enthusiasm.

GG: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh oh my god FIFTEEN MORE MINUTES!!!!

TG: jade what did she just say???

TG: what did she just say

GG: I CANT THIS IS TOO MUCH OH MY GOD

GG: is anyone else there yet???

TG: im gonna be right on time

EB: same

TT: We’ve coordinated this eerily well.

GG: this bus is too slow!!!!!1

TG: i rode a taxi here whatre you even doing taking public transport

EB: i’m just walking. i’m super near so…

TT: As am I.

GG: pchooooo…goes the bus

TG: aight yall we should probably stop texting before we meet each other cause its kinda weird

TG: see ya in meatspace nerds

-

You, Jade, Rose and Dave arrive around the same time, like one of your favorite movies. You hit each other like bullets as soon as you see each other. There’s hugging. So much hugging.

“I’m going to push you down a flight of friendship stairs,” You tell Dave giddily, after Rose gives you a demure kiss on the cheek and you’ve whirled Jade up and around in her green dress.

"You goddamn weirdo," he says, burying his face in your shoulder. After a minute, he lets you go.

Jade asks you, “Can I hoist you on my shoulders?”

You nod. She grabs you and you scramble for purchase. Before you know it, you’re on her shoulders, her beefy arms gripping your legs.

You card your hand over your eyes, and point to wherever the sidewalk of the museum leads. “Forward!”

“Who died and made you leader?” Dave says from beneath you, but he’s smiling in that crooked way that says he’s fucking with you.

“I’m your friendleader. There is a big difference!” You reply.

Rose has her arm slung over his shoulder and he slumps into her space like it’s no big deal.

“So where are we going?” Rose says.

“Everywhere and anywhere,” Jade replies, grinning like a carnivore.

-

“You’re the friendleader, but I’m totes the navigator,” You declare. You are a witch, and that makes you pathfinder. You say this to three astonished friends of yours, who you have recently just met, and everyone shrugs and just goes along with it.

Too easy.

\--

You begin to suspect Jade has led you astray on purpose.

You don’t recognize this street. You let your eyes sharpen, for a moment, thinking of Bourbon Street with its confetti and jazz musicians against this clean city; all circuit boards and futuristic leanings, eclectic enough to tempt you but not just enough to lure you. But you shake your head. You’re with your friends. That’s all that matters.

You and Dave linger behind, as you finger his hair and wonder at the color and he trades jokes with John on the occasion you catch up. You're mostly watching Jade and John’s backs – Jade’s natural curls and locks bouncing up and down, John’s shaved head turning to her occasionally, laughing about something. You feel at home with them.

Then Dave is waving his hand in front of your face, subtly raising his eyebrows, saying something about ice cream. You’ve stopped near a row of shophouses parallel to a baseball field. Near the shophouse that says CLOSED PERMANENTLY, a young woman stands at her cart with a smile like diamonds and giving Jade a cone of peppermint chocolate with rainbow sprinkles.

“I also offer gelato,” she says sweetly and you try to be surreptitious about checking her out. She’s tan with a lovely weave of yellow and orange, wearing green lipstick that makes her brown eyes pop. She’s wearing a pink uniform. In a word; lovely.

John waggles his eyebrows at you and you laugh, and you ask him what his favorite flavor is.

“Ummmmmmmmmmmm,” he says, teetering on his shoes back and forth. “I don’t really know.” He whirls around to face the lady, a streak of wind and blue t shirt. “Surprise me!”

To her credit, she smiles and gives him a dollop of mango ice cream. He takes it happily and tips her, in your opinion, way too much. Dave immediately gets apple rhubarb with cardamom. You get marionberry.

“That’s so all-American,” John says, looking at Dave.

“You grew up in the suburbs, dude,” he retorts. “You shit American capitalism and like, I don’t know, wear the American flag when no one’s looking. Pot, kettle, be racist together.”

“Dave!” Jade says, looking offended.

“Uh-” Dave suddenly looks off balance. “I didn’t – uh –”

“Psyche!” She says cheerfully. John high fives her. “I’m just fucking with you, white boy.” She laughs, deep and hearty.

Dave flushes instantly, and tries to regain his composure. “Why do I feel like this entire meet up is going to be bad for my self-esteem?”

“You’re with us, duh,” John says.

You casually link arms with Dave. “I’m afraid it’s true. This disease called friendship, combined with physical proximity, will be mentally traumatizing. Feel free to discuss any inferiority complexes you develop at length, ‘bro’.”

“Yo, no mocking the vernacular,” he says, though he doesn’t untangle himself from you. “A man can only take so much effrontery before he lays down the law.”

“Just eat your ice cream, Dave,” you say, sighing the sigh of the mockingly long-suffering.

-

All impromptu, you're walking past a park where there's a concert going on. Jade pulls on Rose's hands and they're tumbling into the crowd together, all fast and your confusion captured with your own camera as John laughs.

It's a concert of a pop/rock band doing covers and there's a guy onstage dancing with his accordion as a purple-haired girl near-smashes her drum set, tight-knuckled and sweaty. Jade dances with her hands raised up to the blue sky as Rose holds John's hand as they jump up and down. You pump your fist and gets into the beat as soon as your disorientation fades, and you dance until you get dizzy.

\--

You insist on grabbing dinner at an unbelievably pretentious café slash diner slash restaurant hybrid. Walking down the docks, you find a place with all glass doors, chalk walls with dishes written all over them. It’s got all the trappings you were looking for – wood square tables, glass vases with flowers in them on said tables that look more like tiny cups, “atmosphere”.

“Said atmosphere being hetero couples sitting everywhere, in their 20s or 30s, or at best, 40s.” You state, adding on, “Also, Bastille and Vampire Weekend playing softly over the speakers. Oh, look!” You point with irony. “They have an employee with a beard.” Jade can’t stop giggling, John’s grin widening by the minute.

“Dave,” Rose says, smirking, “are you finished critiquing?”

“Let’s see, is the place’s name in all lowercase? It is,” you say, acting mock-astonished. “ _Now_ I'm done. For the moment.”

“May I take your order?” a server approaches your table, his best bitch-face on.

You smile at him with all the enthusiasm you can muster. “Oh, yeah.”

-

Afterwards, you all don’t want to say goodbye. John suggests you all crash at his hotel room, which has a couch, and he had a king sized bed anyway.

“All the homo,” you say, as you squeeze next to him on the bed, Jade crashing on the floor and Rose taking the couch.

“Hot,” John says, waggling his eyebrows.

“Are you sure you’re okay with the floor, Jade?” Rose says to Jade.

Jade flaps her hand back and forth in dismissal. “I spend half my time sleeping on floors. This one has carpet! It’s practically luxury. Don’t worry about it.”

Rose slides off the couch and lies down next to her on the floor. "It's a beautiful ceiling."

"Yeah, I'm really digging the cream color plaster."

They murmur to each other, laughing and giggling, Jade trying on her black lipstick and Rose cooing over her Squiddles lunchbox and drawings. You're almost jealous.

They're interrupted by the sound of John's voice. “Wait, did you guys bring any toothbrushes? Change of clothes?”

You all shake your head no. John tsks, and calls the hotel staff for extra toothbrushes and towels. You subtly check out the cute bellhop, then tip him and wink as he leaves.

All of you take turns to shower, John providing a change of clothes. His shirt and boxers are swimmingly huge on you and Rose, who are sticks. Jade wears hers like she’s been born in them, which, seeing as they’re a similar fit, is unsurprising.

There’s a strange intimacy in cramming around two sinks, brushing your teeth. You watch Rose extract makeup remover wipes from her handbag and swipe away the black lipstick, eyeliner, mascara smudging on her face. She’s as beautiful underneath.

By the time you’re all done, it’s nearly midnight. You turn off the lights, but John suggests you watch shows.

“I’m not really tired, anyway,” Rose calls from the couch.

“Rose, get over here!” he replies. Jade’s the last one out as you, John and Rose all pile up on the bed and try to figure out the TV. She dive bombs onto the friend-pile and you all laugh and shriek as she tries to tickle all of you.

The three of you lie down vertically while she stretches herself across your legs horizontally.

"You're going to give me pins and needles, dude," you whinge, but without any real vigor.

" _Deal_ ," she says all pretend-defiant and you roll your eyes.

"Bluh bluh, guys, stop flirting," John calls. He waves a menu taken off the bedside table. "Let's do room service."

"Hell yes," Jade says, sitting up and putting all her weight on your legs, since you're the unlucky man in the middle. You scowl.

"It's nearly midnight," Rose says.

"24 hour service!" Jade crows. You four spend the next half hour deliberating. John gets a cheeseburger with fries, Rose gets pesto pasta with basil leaves, you get a huge whopping apple pie and Jade orders chicken wings with fudge. You also order apple juice, John gets a chocolate milkshake, Rose simply brews tea with the kettle provided and Jade huddles around it waiting to make coffee.

The large order is placed to a grumpy clerk over the hotel phone and you four nearly doze off before it arrives around 2 am.

The plate is huge and you all look at it with trepidation. Then Jade digs in, and suddenly you reclaim your appetites with fervor. Halfway through the meal, Rose breaks the slurp-and-smacking-lips "silence" with laughter.

"What's so funny?" Jade says with her mouth full, making it sound like _waffs sho fummy?_

"This," Rose says, her fork twirling in her bowl. "We used to keep each other up late at night, remember? Jade, you'd grab cereal and John would eat a pastry, and it'd be like we'd be eating in the same room. Dave crinkling his chip bag too much during a game."

You smile.

"But this is the real experience - all of us in the same room, eating a meal at an absurd hour together." Rose says.

"It's awesome," Jade chips in, after chewing and swallowing.

You sit in silence for a moment, before all of you begin to talk again, the words pouring out of you like they can't stop. They're mundane and everyday, but there's a sacred feel about them now. Your first time together. Everything seems special.

"Can I have some of your burger?"

"Can I try your shake?"

Bowls and spoons being passed, napkins being balled up and thrown at each other (guilty), stealing John's fries and sharing everyone's drinks without grabbing the extra straws provided. The four of you trying your best not to laugh too much, lest the other guests complain. It's 2 am and you're whispering, watching John pick pickles off his cheeseburger as Rose eats some of Jade's fudge.

You are one lucky motherfucker, you think.

Jade burps so loudly after you're done that you nearly have a heart attack, and everyone breaks into near-silent giggles.

Eventually, you all fall asleep to reruns of _Adventure Time_ around 4.

-

You’re slowly being nudged awake.

"Dave, Dave, Dave," a familiar voice says, and you mumbles words you don't understand.

"Dave?" You open your eyes. "You were talking in your sleep."

Rose looms over you, lit by one lamp, wearing all black. She looks concerned.

"I'm fine. It's a habit," you say, the heel of your hand against your eyelids. You grab your sunglasses without fumbling around and are up in a couple seconds. You look around and see Jade and John all dressed in black as well.

"It's 5.34 a.m., guys, what's going on?"

"You weren't kidding about that uncanny knack to tell the time. You didn't even sneak a look at your phone!" John says, impressed.

"John's got a surprise for us!" Jade says, teetering back and forth on her feet. John hands you a flashlight from his bag, a hefty thing that you stare at, still dazed; surprised at its weight. Jade’s dialing a cab in the corner. Rose has her hand on your shoulder like she’s worried you’re going to disappear.

“Where are we headed?” You ask.

-

"Are you going to murder us?" Rose asks as they spill out of a cab into the suburban dark, blackness covering everything. The wind breaks in streams around your bodies. She asks this with some interest, as if John had just told her about a favorite book.

"Nooooooooo," John says, a laugh in his voice. "Everybody have a flashlight?"

There's a rustling of hands and lights clicking on, green, blue, red, purple.

"Are we doing a lightshow?" you ask. Jade's face is lit up with emerald and when she looks over at you, eyes wide, she looks like an alien.

“Look up!” John exclaims. Your vision ascends to a huge rock next to a bunch of suburban houses, with a carved out staircase that leads up to its peak.

“Welcome to Indian Rock Park,” John proclaims, grinning. “Berkeley’s stargazing secret.”

He starts to climb, his flashlight a guide, and you three follow after, tails to his comet.

-

When you’ve reached the top, you see John pretending to teeter over the edge. Your heart’s already beating hard from the adrenaline and you surge forward, worried. Rose says tersely, “John–"

"Are you insane?" you yell over the wind.

"Yeah!" John shouts over his shoulder, as if that should have been a given already.

He begins to wobble and feigns flailing his arms. Jade sprints forward and catches him by the hem of his shirt, laughing. Rose, so tense a second before, hooks his ankle and with all the smoothness of an umbrella handle yanking a cartoon character off stage, pulls him away as you grab onto his arm protectively.

"This isn't Mirror's Edge, numbnuts," you say.

Then John says, “Dude, chill,” in a horrible imitation of your voice which is completely inaccurate. Rose laughs anyway, the jerk.

Jade says, “Forget his antics - look at this,” and her voice is tinged with wonder.

You and Rose look at the horizon atop your high perch.

Across the water, you see the BART tracks, and beyond that, the Golden Gate Bridge leading to San Francisco. Rows and rows of lights in the distance, glistening wetly, coiling snakes of baked neon yellow.

Rose lets out a soft exhalation of awe and you take off your sunglasses and rub your eyes. The sight is even more gorgeous with your vision unobscured.

“Wow, right?” John says, after a couple minutes of silence. You can only nod.

You four stand there in reverence, soaking in the beauty of the lit up city skyline. The sunrise is starting to edge around the horizon as well, the beautiful oranges starting to show.

After about twenty minutes of staring, all of you sit down and begin to talk in animated, if hushed, tones.

"We're on the Coast, right?" you ask, at some point.

"Poor Dave," Jade says, all earnest sincerity like she really believes it.

"Are you missing the industrial-strength greyness of the South already?"

"Hey, hey, do not mock the South," you protest. "We make some _rad_ corn."

John snickers behind his hand and you swat him with your flashlight.

-

The morning after is hell. As expected, you have to drag Dave out of bed before 11 am and threaten to draw on his face with your eyeliner. You all freshen up and agree to meet up at the Embarcadero station after hitting your own hotel rooms. You end up meeting at 3 pm, because staying up until 7 am to watch the sunrise was actually _not_ the best idea, surprise surprise.

-

Because you're tourists, because you're insufferably hungry, because it's California crazy culture custom, you immediately catch the tram down to Fisherman's Wharf to get some seafood. There's a giggly, nervous atmosphere as you all sit down next to each other, with the wind whistling through your hair. It's a cloudy sort of afternoon, but in some patches sunny.

The first time the tram pauses before a steep hill, Jade and John gasp. You and Dave act unimpressed, but Dave's snapping photos ferociously before they move. The skyline looks like its parallel to you, almost.

Then you plunge down like a very slow rollercoaster. Somewhere a child shrieks, and Jade's laughing as she puts her hand out of the cart and catches the wind in her upturned palm.

"Still think we should've gone to Vegas?" you murmur in Dave's ear. He shakes his head with a minuscule gesture.

-

“Hey, keep up, c’mon fly boy!” Jade drags you by hand as you slow down after a tough stretch of uphill road. You’re so full after all those oysters.

Rose brings you to City Light books and walks up and down that street with the huge rainbow flag, insisting on more gelato and buying impromptu poems off a guy with a typewriter on the street.

Dave simply wants to eat everything. He wants to go to Chinatown, which you do for dinner. The dim sum is amazing, and you and Jade eat so much the other customers whisper and point.

You guys wander near to a flea market, and Rose buys you a knit bunny. You hug him to your chest immediately and thank her. You buy her yarn and mochi, and Jade and Dave make moon-eyed faces at you behind Rose's back. She shares the strawberry one with you and it's a cold burst of sweetness.

Then you're all just walking again. You grin and laugh and sing, because at some point Jade breaks into Bon Jovi, and then it’s all four of you shouting _You Give Love A Bad Name_ down a crowded street near the Westlake shopping center. Some strangers even join in, a couple times, until a security guard asks you to stop.

At some point, you’ll have to stop. The ride ends, you all fly home, the experiences now becoming memories. But not yet. Oh, not yet. Freeze the frame and stop time – here you are, with the people you love most, in a beautiful city where nobody knows you but them.

All of you start to talk -

"Hey, remember when we livestreamed that video game on Twitch?"

"Hey, remember when I sent Jade those pumpkin seeds?"

"Remember when we tried doing karouke over Skype?"

"Remember when - "

"Remember when - "

"Remember when we became friends?"

-

GG: hi!

GG: my names jade, whats yours??

GT: hello!

GT: it's john

GT: nice to meet you

-

GG: so how long have you been into squiddles?

TT: One is not simply "into" Squiddles.

TT: It’s a lifestyle.

TT: That is to say, without ironic/pretentious trimmings, two years.

TT: And you?

-

GG: maybe if you changed the key it would work a bit better

TG: whoa hey now

TG: are you suggesting I compromise my artistic integrity

TG: if so

TG: im in

-

GT: so my friend jade says

TT: Wait, Jade?

GT: yeah! do you know her?

-

TT: So it turns out we both have a mutual friend named Jade.

TG: uh

TG: you might want to make that three of us

TT: I can barely contain my mirth. Oh, Good God.

TT: This is bordering on vaudeville.

TG: jesus

TG: that girl is a force of nature

TT: What I want to know is

TT: Does she realize how she's brought us all together?

-

EB: hey i just realized something

GG: what is it?

EB: you’re the one who introduced me to that music forum site where we both met dave separately

EB: and you linked me to that rpg game where i met rose…

EB: and i introduced them to each other

EB: and you turn out to be friends with both of them all along?

EB: maybe they’re right about you being super psychic!

GG: hehehe

GG: that sounds like i came up with this weird convoluted plan!!

GG: like i was in cahoots with the fates! :O

GG: it would have been way easier to just introduce you all to each other

EB: true

GG: i did share a theory about that with rose and dave a bit earlier today  


GG: like a genuine scientific theory!!!  


EB: whats that

GG: well! in any given universe

GG: where versions of us exist

GG: we always come together

GG: like a law of nature

GG: we dont know how to not be with each other

GG: just as the tides rise and fall

GG: and the planets continue to orbit the portion of galaxy we inhabit

GG: we are always friends

GG: no matter what


End file.
